mix09

Buxton: Microsoft starting to get design

LAS VEGAS--When Bill Buxton talks about good product design, his favorite example is the Avalanche beacon he takes with him on his ice climbing expeditions.

"It's a technology that I bet my life on," Buxton said. "How many (of those) do we have?"

The product he said is fairly complex to do and yet the market for it is small. "Precisely because of that, there are no frills. You don't add features. There are no gratuitous features."

Buxton, a former Xerox PARC researcher who helped pioneer the technology behind multitouch interfaces, says … Read more

Mix 09: IE 8, Silverlight in the spotlight

roundup A new browser and would-be Flash rival Silverlight have starring roles at Microsoft's annual conference in Las Vegas for Web designers.

Hands-on with IE 8: A giant step for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 takes another large leap forward for the world's most-used browser, but is it enough to make devoted Firefox, Chrome, and Safari fans switch? Browser war centers on once-obscure JavaScript (Posted in The Download Blog by Seth Rosenblatt) March 19, 2009 5:55 PM PDT Are catalogs the killer app for Silverlight? Silverlight's Deep Zoom offers a way to view magazines and catalogs … Read more

Are catalogs the killer app for Silverlight?

LAS VEGAS--Just like its predecessor a year ago, Silverlight 3 is clearly one of the stars of the Microsoft Mix conference under way here this week.

Silverlight is a Web browser plug-in for Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. (Silverlight also supports Firefox and Safari browsers and Mac OS X in addition to Microsoft Windows. A primarily Novell-developed plug-in, Moonlight, runs on Linux.) Its initial iteration was narrowly focused on media. However, Silverlight's direction is toward enabling a broad class of "rich Internet applications."

So, for example, Silverlight 3 will allow developers to create lightweight Web … Read more

Installing Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 8 is now ready to download. We installed the final build of Microsoft's latest browser, and captured the (looong) download process and our first impressions of some of the featured highlights in pictures.

If that's not enough (it never is,) CNET's Ina Fried has the full story of Microsoft's launch of IE 8 at Redmond's MIX 09 conference, and some details about a version of the browser for Windows 7. Also stay tuned to Download.com for our forthcoming video review and an in-depth look at the features and faults we find with … Read more

Microsoft launches IE 8 with a smile

LAS VEGAS--Having finished its latest browser, Microsoft on Thursday kicked off its campaign to get consumers to actually start using it.

After years of losing market share to Firefox and other rivals, Microsoft is hoping to convince people, many of whom use old versions of Internet Explorer, to give the company a new look.

Part of that marketing push is a light-hearted video on the history of the Internet that also shows off some of the new features of Internet Explorer 8, including its private browsing mode and so-called "accelerators" that let users take action without leaving the … Read more

Microsoft set to unleash Internet Explorer 8

LAS VEGAS--Aiming to better compete against a growing list of rivals, Microsoft on Thursday is launching Internet Explorer 8, the latest version of its Web browser.

IE 8, as the browser is known, was first shown a year ago and has been in testing for months. The new browser adds security improvements, a private browsing option, as well as the ability to save pre-defined "slices" of a Web page for at-a-glance viewing.

But perhaps the biggest change in the browser is one made behind the scenes--the decision to make the browser better adhere to Web standards. That should … Read more

Netflix: Silverlight 3 could help with glitches

Netflix said on Wednesday that the next version of Silverlight shows some promise in helping ease recent issues that some users have had while trying to stream videos on lower-end computers.

"There are test configurations in our lab where we are seeing an improvement," said Kevin McEntee, vice president of Web development for Netflix. McEntee told CNET News that the company went out and bought computers such as an Asus Netbook that users had said were causing problems. In some cases, the low-end machines weren't able to keep up with the video and were dropping frames, McEntee … Read more

Microsoft releases Web translating widget

LAS VEGAS--Microsoft's research unit on Wednesday released a tool that allows Web developers to let users translate their Web site into other languages without having to leave the page.

The company said a tech preview version of the Microsoft Translator widget is available for download, allowing developers to offer users a pull-down menu to translate a Web page in multiple languages.

The main benefit of the widget is it allows users to translate the page without having to leave a site, unlike other approaches which require a user to go to another Web site first.

Microsoft announced the translation … Read more

Mix 09: Silverlight 3 takes center stage

LAS VEGAS--After a design-focused beginning, the talk quickly turned techie here at the Mix 09 event once Microsoft corporate VP Scott Guthrie took the stage.

After announcing a few different Web tools (which I'll save for lower down), the discussion shifted to Silverlight and Silverlight 3. Guthrie noted that so far there have been 350 million installations of Silverlight and said Microsoft believes there are now 300,000 developers targeting Silverlight.

Among the new features of Silverlight 3 is the ability to tap a computer's graphics processor to offer hardware acceleration of the video (both PC and Mac). … Read more

Mix kicks off with Buxton touting design

LAS VEGAS--To kick off its Mix conference, Microsoft went deep into its bench to find a speaker that could connect with the crowd of Web developers.

Rather than start with a product pitch, Microsoft began the event with a speech from Bill Buxton, a computing pioneer who these days focuses on design for Microsoft research.

Buxton's chat had a very un-Microsoft feel, as he ran back and forth on stage, gesturing wildly and speaking passionately about the need to create better experiences. Buxton encouraged the crowd not to get hung up on programming tools at first, but just sketch … Read more